confused by broken little peals of laughter, he made out a group of
ladies gathered about a tiny Oriental table upon which stood a tray of
Turkish coffee. Gerty rose from the circle as he advanced, and moved a
single step forward, while the pale green flounces of her train rippled
prettily about her feet. Her hair was loosely arranged, and she gave him
an odd impression of wearing what in his provincial mind he called a
"wrapper"--his homely name for the exquisite garment which flowed,
straight and unconfined, from her slender shoulders. His mother, he
remembered, not without a saving humour, had always insisted that a lady
should appear before the opposite sex only in the entire armour of her
"stays" and close-fitting bodice.

Gerty, as she mentioned the names of her callers, subsided with her
ebbing green waves into the chair from which she had risen, and held her
cigarette toward Trent with a pretty inviting gesture. Her delicate
grace gave the pose a piquant attraction, and he found himself watching
with delight the tiny rings of smoke which curled presently from her
parted lips. As she smoked she held her chin slightly lifted, and
regarded him from beneath lowered lids with an arch and careless humour.

"If you'd been the Pope himself," she remarked, as an indifferent
apology, "I'd hardly have done more than fling the table-cover over my
head. Even you, after you'd spent a morning trying on a velvet gown,
would require a lounge and a good smoke."

He admitted that he thought it probable, and then turned to one of the
callers who had spoken--a handsome woman with gray hair, which produced
an odd effect of being artificial.

"I wish I'd done nothing worse than try on clothes," she observed, "but